Golden age" of soviet internationalism and problems of interethnic relations in Kazakhstan (1964-1985)

The Soviet national policy induced the development of contradictory tendencies in interethnic relations in the USSR. Real internationalism in national policy facilitated the solution of national problems and consolidation of Soviet people on the principles of confidence and soli-darism. This unity vividly manifested itself during the Great Patriotic War. At the same time local forms of historical-cultural and political identities were gradually being established in Union Republics. Ethnic elites were coming to power. They had been submitting to the will of the Union authorities until the fundamentals of authentic Lenin’s national policy, presupposing the inviolability of frontiers and state-forminf status of the titular nations, were affected. In that period the local community of Kazakhstani citizens was taking shape, the core of which was formed by the local Russians and Kazakhs. The relationships between the largest ethnic groups were to a considerable degree those of partnership and solidarism. The model of power peculiar to Kazakhstan in that period was that of ethnic collaboration in promoting candidates to bodies of government, whereas in other Central Asian Republics non-title groups were virtually “squeezed out” from the highest governing bodies. The collaboration model of ethnic representation in the highest governing bodies existed till the collapse of the USSR. It could most likely be caused by the predominance of Russian population in the industrial sector of economy. The problems of interethnic relations were connected with German and Uyghur national movements. Unfair practices of ethnic preferences in access to higher education, personnel selection and language policy of Union and Republic’s authorities affected the Germans and the Uyghurs most painfully. The Germans and the Uyghurs considered the option of establishing national-territorial autonomies regarding it as a possibility to block the threat of assimilation and to provide the survival of their ethnic groups. In Kazakhstan the project of autonomisation heightened the conflict potential between Kazakhs and ethnic minorities, Muslim nations in the first place: the Uyghurs and the Uzbeks, whose representatives declared themselves autochthonous. The German movement hoped to revive the German Autonomy on the Volga and, therefore, did not strive for confrontation with Kazakh population. The USSR State Security Committee was the initiator of the German Autonomy establishment in Kazakhstan. Autonomist projects were broken up by the resistance of Kazakh population and the middle management of party careerists. The frustration of the Union Authorities’ plans demonstrated the potential power of ethnic mobilizations aimed at the protection of the Republic’s territorial integrity and showed the limits of “possible” in national policy. It became apparent that the possibilities of de-ethnization of the USSR state system had been exhausted by the early 1980s and political leaders of the country had to put up with the existence of “standard ethnic nationalism” in the Soviet and Autonomous Republics.

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